I Never Existed Again, the Prequel

Salaam,

I was just going through a journal of mine from when I was 19 years old and read a paragraph that really exemplified the whole "I never existed again" thing, 4 years before I would hear the Djavan song that would give meaning to the feeling I had. And this was only the beginning of me feeling this way. I had not known MQ for a year yet, and I was already falling into the obsession circuit in my brain.

Anything in brackets are edits I've made in retrospect. This was written in January, 2004. Emphasis, with the bold, was also added by me later.


I think it was last Thursday, so Thursday, January 6. It was the first time I had my Spanish class with Sra. Highfill (and wow, I just suddenly had déjà vu with her and her class…like I’d been there before or something).  Anyway, a girl came in named Sarwat.  I had seen her on thefacebook before, back when I was looking up stuff on Azmat…who didn’t end up pairing up with [MQ] at all.  It was just me being silly…again.


Anyway, Sarwat came in, and for whatever reason, I just thought of [MQ] whenever I looked at her.  Okay, it was obvious why I did…I was thinking about the whole culture thing, and if, for him to ever really consider me, that’s what I would have to be…Desi, Pakistani, whatever…and I never would be…well, obviously.  But yes, I thought about that, and then I started thinking back to him, and all the silly little conversations we had… And that progressed, until I thought about him all day.  And then that kid who’s in my Biochemistry discussion and apparently living in South Quad, Ajay…he reminded me of him, too.  And I would see back of heads [around me in class], and I would get startled when [those backs of heads] looked slightly like [his], and almost wanted to close my eyes and run away in case the head turned around and it was him…

It was something like that, not so eloquently.  And I realized at the end of the day that the whole thing was ridiculous.  I hadn’t seen him since November, and now it’s January, and I hadn’t really spoken to him since we did in the summer, and that was kind of shitty in itself, and I was still nervous to come anywhere close to him, even if it was second hand through his friend Sarwat, who never mentioned him...

[...] as she looked at me as I pronounced my name [for the professor in class], I’d wondered if perhaps she’d heard that name before…and for what reason she would have heard it. [Maybe she'd heard about this girl from him, this girl that was obsessed with him].  Or if it was from the back of random people’s heads that kind of looked like his…I just realized it was getting out of hand, and that I’d spent more time that day thinking of him than thinking of anything that had to do with me.

And I started to wonder how much of myself I had lost in the process of being in love with him.  Yes, I may not have ever gotten him, but I was in love with him, and I wanted him, and I thought that if we worked together, I could marry him…all of that foolishness.  But I wondered how much of myself I lost.  I thought I was losing my personality by being so stuck on him…  But maybe that wasn’t the case at all.  Maybe, in the beginning of this whole ordeal, I didn’t have that much personality to begin with.  Not as much as I thought I had.

This was remarkable for me to read. In that last paragraph especially, it's like I couldn't even remember who I had been before there was him. I go on to write about how my first journal entry began with me musing about the my teenaged crush, Corey, and I wondered how many legitimate thoughts had I had that were not about some male.

Another (perhaps) remarkable thing is that my writing hasn't changed so very much in the last 11 years. I'd like to think I'm a slightly better writer now, and definitely the content is more mature now, but oh well.

I'm, in general, stunned by how naïve I was...11 years is a lot. I ended this entry thinking about taking out loans to take an MCAT class. That's how long ago that was. That was a more than 4 years of medical school, 1 year of public health school and 3 years of residency ago. Wow!

And it's also incredible how you can lose yourself in someone who in the end has nothing to do with you...

Depression is...

As salaam alaikum,

I cannot survive without writing. Writing has become such a big part of my life, that even though I'm going to have to get up in less than 7 hours to finish clinic notes from today, darnit, I'm going to write! If I don't write before I go to sleep tonight, I'm going to explode!

And sometimes, that's what self-care during residency means. Exchanging sleep for doing something that will make your soul make sense.

Speaking of one's soul making sense...I, just a few seconds ago, over the course of several hours, whipped myself into a frenzy of sorts. I've done a lot of reflection about my place in religion, my place in Islam, my place with God, all of these things. This, in addition to facing a patient today who recently had suicidal ideation and a plan, got me feeling pretty depressed.

Soon, everything around me was depressing.

The fact that I had a patient who was 25 and a parent already while I'm 29 and single was depressing.

The fact that my best friend from med school is pregnant with her first child and I'm 29 and single, perhaps indefinitely, was depressing.

The fact that my younger cousin is enjoying the first few weeks of motherhood whereas I remember her being the age of her daughter and I feel no closer to motherhood than I was when I was her age was depressing.

The fact that over half of my friends from medical school are married and have already had their first child and I may never get married and or by the time I do I may be infertile was depressing.

The fact that I am overweight and currently hairy was depressing. No one would ever want me, and my SO would realize that and leave me, and that was also depressing.

Then I talked to my SO about God, a topic he shies away from with me because I usually have heavy thoughts. I talked to him with how my patient rationalized her severe reaction to the death in her family with God's plan and about how I realized that I've never been comfortable with God's plan. Not God's plan itself but the term, the simplified concept. I realized that it's always depressed me when it's suppose to be a source of comfort. He was not ready for this conversation at nearly 10pm at night, so I hung up the phone and brooded on my own.

And then I had an epiphany that brought me up from the depths of my self-constructed depressive episode.

For me, depression is believing that God has no plan for you, or that God's plan is for you to fail. In Qur'anic terms, that you are one of the ones who God is hardening your heart to prepare you for hellfire, and there is nothing you can do about it, because it's God's will.

This was the source of my depression when I was a teenager, and I hadn't felt that way in a long time. I don't believe it now, but I got a whiff of it as I found myself sinking deeper into my self-made funk.

That is the root of depression for me. Those times when I feel so remote from God that I begin to doubt the purpose of my existence...those are hard times.

And that is how my patient felt when she wanted to shoot herself.

And that is how I felt as an adolescent.

And that's how I would continue to feel if I didn't take a break from sleeping this evening and keep vigil by my laptop and write things out.

Depression for me is doubt in my purposeful existence. My only remedy, then, is belief.

[uncensored]: Whatever Happened to RMD?

As salaam alaikum,

Mo’s so light he feels like flying yet he knows better than to grin wildly at this point. This is no smiling matter, less a laughing matter, and he finds himself another night trekking home with clothing improper for the chill of the evening, his mind fixed on her.

He slipped a while back because they’ve had a freak ice storm and it’s hard to tell the black of the ice from the black of the asphalt and the sidewalks are even worse. He steadies himself and resumes his resolute pace. 

Mo stares at his feet and about four feet before him to ensure that he doesn’t slip on yet another ice patch. He also notices that he swings his left foot out farther than his right when he walks. He forgets the ice and finds himself zeroing in on his left foot and contrasting its swing to that of his right.

Nisreen’s laughing at him. “What is it?” he asks, turning back. It’s one of the warmer days, and she’s wearing a light-weight pink blouse with a neckline low enough that it’s showing her chest a bit whenever the wind blows her scarf. She’s standing near the front door to her apartment building, and he can hear her cackle despite the whirring of the wind that is whipping about them. 

“I’ve grown accustomed to your stride,” she remarks as he returns with her mail in one hand, her mailbox keys in the other.

  

“How’s that funny?” he inquires, as she holds the screen door open for him. She follows closely behind him.

“I don’t know.  It’s just so characteristically you,” she answers, giving him a halfway grin. “You kind of have a clumsy way of going about it, like you’re involuntarily throwing your left foot from beneath you.”

This is an excerpt from RMD that I may or may not have posted before. For my readers who have come along post-RMD mention, RMD, A Rose Much Desired, is the first novel I've actually competed as an adult. I try to get my family members to read it before I do my next round of major edits, but no one seems to get through it, so I've nicknamed it "The Brick."

To give a little bit of background of the story, I first dreamed up the plot for RMD during a creative writing class my senior year of college. I was struggling writing short stories for this course, partly because of a teacher who brought her own personal opinions on the character's motivations dominate during the discussion of the writing. RMD started out as an assignment to practice writing enthralling first-paragraphs of stories. I thought, what if I wrote a first paragraph for a story in which a practicing Muslim wakes up from a one-night-stand.

Thus was born Mo, afraid of the woman that he'd just slept with as he recognizes that she's awaken and is staring up at him.

After reading the paragraph out-loud (which was difficult for me, as a then-hijabi and one who doesn't curse in public, to read aloud the word "shit"), my instructor questioned the motives of the female involved. Why is she angry, she asked? She did it, didn't she?

Seriously, professor? You do not think that anger is a probable emotional outcome of a one-night stand? The character is not you, after all.

I ignored that comment, but began imagining the story more. Who is the woman behind the one-night stand? Who is Mo? What led them there? What is their story?

I began sketching out the short story, which I called, "Agent," as a possible short story for the second half of my semester in creative writing. I didn't get "Agent" done in time enough, so I instead wrote a story called "Drinking Water," a play off of Tom Jobim's "Agua de Beber," but it was a story based in the DR, with a character, Jannah, based on me, trying to figure out where her morals lay, from her mode of dress to whether she dances in public, while on the island of Hispaniola, while being courted by a friendly Dominican man.

It was okay at best.

But, it was the first semi-autobiographical piece I had written. As I'd noticed in my freshman year creative writing class, the story that I wrote in which one of the characters was closer to myself got more of a response (Gloria in "Garota" was both me and my best friend, who had recently come out to me...my depression and my best friends attraction to women). There was something more authentic about the whole piece if at least one of the characters was real, in a sense.

And so I went back to the drawing board on "Agent," after the class was over. I began writing scenes, while flying to medical school second-looks, while taking a trip with my parents to Disney, during the break between lectures...anytime I got. I was beginning to fall in love with the story of Mo and the difficult woman that he made the mistake of sleeping with.

Except, the character I chose to make myself was that woman...

I put myself in that woman's shoes, the woman who awoke angrily to a Muslim man after a one-night stand, and wondered what I would have done. The story blew up after that, took on a life of it's own. "Agent" became a novel and "Agent" was no longer a proper name for a novel, so I brainstormed before I came up with the perfect name: "A Rose Much Desired."

I think I came up with the name only after I began outlining the plot of the story, only after a blogging friend of mine recommended that I do National Novel Writers' Month in November of 2007. Since RMD was growing, I took that as an opportunity to push myself to write my first novel. It grew to three narrations. "Agent," was the story of Mo, "Desirée" was the story of the woman he was sleeping with, and how she became so enamored of Muslim men that she specifically sought Mo out, and "Muslimah" is the story of Nisreen, the Muslim woman who sees Mo's distress and embarks on a journey to help him out of what she feels is a spiritual deficit.

I "won" NaNoWriMo, writing over 50,000 words in one month (while learning anatomy), and added bits and pieces to the novel (I really was in the last quarter of the book and got writers block). I wouldn't finish RMD until November 2010, three years after I began.

I had declared a "Center of Awesomeness," that can be seen in my journal at the time. I was going to finish the story! Around the same time, I met who would become my notorious ex, Ex the Prototype. He was gentle and kind, and passive in his attraction to me, and I think that was why I let him in. He didn't have the underlying voracious sexual energy that other guys who liked me had, so I was less threatened by him. Honestly.

And let me not front, we had a lot of other things in common...besides, of course, religion, which I worried about.

But while that was worrying me, I finished RMD, finally. I printed it out at the medical school, while we still had unlimited printing, I edited it by hand and then edited it on the word-processor. This was not my first of may edits to the text.

I prepared my family to read it, and my best friend...and then Ex the Prototype wanted to read it.

It required a lot of trust to email him that manuscript, but I did.

Meanwhile, my mother declared that she couldn't read it after only getting past the first chapter, that she didn't like Desirée and if it weren't my writing, she wouldn't care any more about her to continue reading. And, she said when she read Desirée, she just saw me, and it was distracting.

Which is effective, because Desirée is me.

And other comments that were marginally constructive criticism. She then pointed me to one of her favorite authors, Eric Jerome Dickey, and I was a little taken aback. She didn't get far enough into the story to realize that that was not the kind of novel I was going for, but okay.

Then none of my cousins and friends could complete the story.

The final sinker was the ex. And this was in a time (while he was still with me) that I really hung on his every word. He said he was distracted because the guy didn't sound like a guy in the first chapter, that it was "weird," but he'd try to keep reading. Then, a few days later, he told me, regrettably, that he wouldn't be able to read it.

I was sad. I didn't really mind that my mother couldn't read it...it is awkward to read a story about a character that seems like your daughter in a sexual situation. Sorry, Mom. But my ex, who usually liked my writing (campy things like my skit for the Second Year Show included), couldn't get through RMD?

Maybe I didn't write Mo realistically. I really needed people to get through half of the story to realize what I was trying to do with the three narrations, the three central characters...but no one ever did. And Ex the Prototype's comments were the most paralyzing.

...even though he also made these comments before getting through the story.

And then he broke up with me about a month later (no, not because RMD was that bad, haha), and I was devastated for a long time, mainly because I had wasted my time on him, had been so ambivalent about him and how being with him would affect my faith, making so many compromises and then he just made the unilateral decision that he was no longer satisfied with the relationship, no longer attracted to me, and bounced.

But for months afterwards, I still took his criticism of RMD seriously.

And I haven't touched it since.

I told myself it was because family members couldn't read it, that I was waiting for someone to finish it, but honestly, none of them ever will. Over a year and a half has passed since I emailed them the manuscript. The beginning of the story is harder to read than the second part because I wrote that part in one month, and while I did the most edits on that part, there are major things that need to change, I recognize.

It's just hard, because the story gets so much more dynamic after that...I really needed people to get to the turning point and tell me what I can do to facilitate the reading of the first part.

I guess I need non-related reviewers, as well.

But if I'm honest with myself, I also didn't touch RMD because I started applying to residency, and since then, I've been busy interviewing, wrapping up medical school, and now moving across the country.

Even though I don't care for Ex the Prototype anymore, and have successfully cut him off from all contact, I still took his criticism seriously.

But then, I think about other things he's said.

Although he claims that he respects women and many of his political and activist role models are women (one of the thing that initially endeared him to me, despite my initial lack of attraction for him), he also made gender-divisive comments through the course of the relationship. Things like, "Well, I'd expect you to say/feel that way, because you are a woman."

The sinker was actually after our relationship, when I was, against my will, flying next to him to our mutual friend's wedding in St. Louis. He was reading, for the first time, Chimamanda Adichie. He talked about how he usually doesn't like reading fiction about women or written by women. It doesn't appeal to him, but he was able to read Chimamanda, maybe because she wrote about Nigeria, but she was just...different.

That gave me insight into his being unable to read RMD at the time...because it was written by me, a woman, unapologetically woman with what could be considered stereotypical female tendencies and sensibilities that are also evident in my writing. My characters are introspective. Mo is, yes, minimally introspective and tries to interpret female's faces, but so did the man that Mo was based on, a man who wrote once that he was struck up a conversation with "the girl" sitting next to him in the computer lab, and as she sorted through her album, she had that "crooked smile that girls get when they're looking at pictures of people they love."

(We used to read each other's journals, back in the day...this is how I had access to things like that).

So while he was unable to connect with Mo because he was not introspective, not particularly empathic, all of which allowed him to break up with me so awkwardly...he also was one of those men who insisted that women didn't make sense to them. Men who don't try hard enough to see the humanity in their female counterparts.


He was not my audience. So why did I worry so much about what he thought?

Because I once respected him. And even after he told me mean things about my body, I still held on to that part that I respected. It took me a long time to not internalize his criticism and give up RMD for shelved, lost, still my baby, but maybe not worth the fight to perfect it.

And maybe it isn't worth the fight, but it damn well won't be because of that ex.



I'm still reading this Jennifer Weiner piece about supporting women writers, but as usual for me, I'll read something, get a sudden inspiration, and have to write it immediately. I can't believe that I internalize a feeling of inferiority about the issues that concern me as a woman, and what I write about, in comparison to the writings of men. There are other men, authors, who have, similarly to my ex, proclaimed the superiority of male writing, saying men have more depth than women. As an unabashed writer of chick lit, she speaks out for the right to write as she pleases.

That's right!

Would the world be a better place without chick lit? Only if you consider those who read chick lit dispensable. And though, admittedly, I don't think I've ever read anything that could fit into that genre (probably, as a preteen and teenager, I've read enough young adult novels that would grow up to be chick lit), I'm not mad at it. To express distaste and disdain about someone else's writing as a fellow author is either ugly pretentiousness or just straight hating.

For example, I tend to be a little hipster and I don't like reading the most popular series. I tried Harry Potter, and it was okay to me. Just not my thing. Heard about Twilight. Not into that. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and etc? Not where my interests lie. But I don't go around dissing the authors.

There's something out there for everyone, and nothing is for everyone. RMD may insult male sensibilities because it's driven in parts by introspective monologues. The man that characterizes something as inherently female and thereafter relinquishes all attempts to understand it are not my audience and besides basic cordiality I have nothing to say to them, either. They obviously don't see me.

I'm reading this in the wake of reading the piece in the Atlantic about not being someone's wife but being perceived as such in the workplace (which makes me wonder if some men just have five schema for adult women: slut, wife, mother, grandma) and how that impacts women's ability to be promoted. I also read this piece about how women physician-scientists are paid markedly less than their male counterparts, and it's not all about being wives and mothers, either.

And, after talking to a friend of mine who reminds me of Ex the Prototype in the way he always is sure to define for me what is a female sensibility, and therefore what he doesn't understand.

Some of the things are not that hard. Seriously, like, "I don't understand why females are so into clothes." Really?



So, for reasons other than it needs a lot of work, haha, RMD is going into hibernation. If I have downtime while I'm a resident, I'll revisit it, make some drastic rewrites in the first half of the story, try to get my fam to read it again. Maybe I'll find someone else who'll want to read it, but I really need to fix some of the writing before I send it off. But I shouldn't be ashamed any more that I write female-centered stories, of my "feminine" sensibilities, or anything else. Yes, my blog is kind of pink and only women seem to read it, but so what?

The worst thing that could happen to any of my writing is me changing it up so I'd think a man would want to read it as if seeking validation.

Now! time for me to get ready for my day! I'm going to the mall to buy some new flats and some dress blouses to make up for the ones that FedEx lost.

What is Man, If Woman

As salaam alaikum,

After attending the conference this weekend and as I continue my spiritual quest to be enough for God myself and evade traditional loneliness, I've started to contemplate gender roles. I think of all of the ways and in all the contexts I believe we very much should have gender roles, and all of the unfortunate ways that reasonable gender roles have been tainted by misogyny.

And it's a lot to think about.

But I thought about women who feel the need to be spiritual leaders, imamas. I thought about how much people decry this and opine that these women are transgressing bounds, if we use Muslim vocabulary. And I think about how I held this to be self-evident, though now I see the very real spaces in society where Muslim women leading at least other Muslim women in prayer is something very essential.

But the case of the imama left alone, what of other problems in the world of gender relations in Islam. The oft nebulous female prayer space in masajid across the country and worldwide. The relegation to the female to her own home to pray, the silencing of females because our voices are apparently awrah, the partitioning of females away from males in worship with physical barriers makes me wonder...is a husband ever able to say salat with his wife without him just wanting to do her at all times?

But on a grander scale, what is this all about? I understand the pull and the anxiety, the feeling of intense necessity to uphold certain mores in the name of Islam, in the name of near perfect submission to our Creator. But I wonder what would happen if you would separate the parts of these attitudes and convictions that result from fear of women, contempt for women, or maybe just plain misunderstanding of women, and what the whole thing would look like. Would there be partitions? Would there be closet-sized musalla for the sisters, would we be so encouraged to just stay home?

And why is there so much interest in what we shouldn't do, shouldn't say, shouldn't be. So much interest in the position of our bodies in prayer, the space where we say prayer, the volume of our voice in daily speak?

One of the women in the conference stated that the reason she felt so many religious women in academia were feminist was because there's such a contrast between the lecture hall, where they sit side by side with men, often Muslim men, who are colleagues and sometimes lecture them to the mosque, where they sit behind curtains, ask questions by writing them on pieces of paper and passing it to the brothers, and are not allowed to give khutbahs. And they look into gender relations in Islam and wonder if this is the way it's supposed to be.

And I wonder if it's the way things are supposed to be.

Why do we have these email chain letters floating around telling sisters to remember that they are not men, they are women, though not at all defining these roles as if it is self-evident. Should I not wear pants? Or should I not be a physician? Even though female physicians are needed to preserve the modesty and ensure the comfort of those female patients, Muslim women included, who require or prefer a female practioner.

So if seeking a profession such as medicine isn't inherently manly, and being desirous of being a wife and a mother is certainly not manly...what is left in this description of "women trying to be like men."

I guess the masjid is the last bastion for so many men of that man's world of yore. And for some of them, Islam is a place where patriarchy is supported by Qur'an and Sunnah. It must be affirming to them to have their roles clearly spelled out like that, and give them something to aspire to.

But is that so threatened by a woman trying to be an imama, let alone the presence of women in the masjid?

It begs the question, what is man, if woman also is?

And this has been a question I've had bubbling up inside of me that goes beyond the context of women in Islam. I'm talking about women in society in general. What is man if woman is also a professional? We are physicians, lawyers and businesswoman. Even in professions that had been traditionally a boys-only club, women are making their way in. For example, my friend who is 5'2" is getting ready to be an orthopedic surgery resident, a field once reserved for ex-jock-like tall and brawny men. Women outnumber men in universities and we tie them in such professional schools as medical schools. While some of my male classmates can definitely slave at work all day and have a doting wife to come home to, half of us are women and have no doting wife to come home to.

What is man if woman is also a leader or ruler of countries? Of queens and presidents and prime ministers, women have been assuming the ranks for some time. While we have not yet had a female president in the US and will not have one in the upcoming election, we've flirted with the idea. We certainly do have female governors, justices and congresswomen. There's no objective measure of who's prowess is greater as a leader. And, once again, as more females than males enter universities increasingly in the United States, one has to wonder at what point the power will shift and more females assume leadership roles not only in government, but in organizations and companies as well.

What is man if woman is a breadwinner in her household? It can certainly happen nowadays that the woman makes more and is in a better position to support the family than her husband.

What is man if woman is independent? We have to wait longer for marriage these days, and often we've traveled the world, lived on our own, supported ourselves with our own income or at the very least been used to living with ourselves only before marriage comes into play. Sharing that with someone else may take some getting used to.

What is man if woman is assertive, opinionated, boisterous, stubborn, determined, hardworking, intelligent, educated, accomplished, ambitious, untiring, strong?

Man is a man. Man should be a man, regardless.

I'm not saying it's all men but I do know some men who are carried away by their insecurities about women doing these things that are supposed to be just for men, I guess, with no textual evidence in our scriptures of this being true. With fewer secular notions as to why this should be true. A woman doing things that once only men did, a woman being any or all of those things I stated above should not be intimidating to the famed "real man."

Man is a man regardless of whether women are professionals, leaders and rules, breadwinners, independent, assertive, opinionated or any of those other things. Just because we women can be all of these things and bear and birth children doesn't render men...sperm donors.

Man, I may be down on you, really and sometimes unnecessarily hard on you, disappointed and dismissive, but I do it out of love. That's right, I love you, and I know you can do so much better. I know, because I have men in my life who have done so much better. I hope and pray every night for the man who will be the head of my household, who will share with me the responsibilities of family life, who will lead me in prayer and pray together with me, that we may help guide each other in spirituality. I pray for a man who I can look up to, someone I feel like I want to be, as I hope I inspire admiration of me in him. And so many other things that I know can exist in a man, in very many men...if they just let it.

If they just let it be. If they just let silly little things be, like circumscribed gender roles that limit the beauty that God enjoins us to find in each other.

So what is man, if woman is the bearer, birther and nurturer of future generations? All of this in addition to being able to assume a full complement of roles outside of the home?

Man is still, insha'Allah, the head of my household, my partner for life, my support, my inspiration, my love, my home...as well as he is his own, independent being, just like me. Just as we were always meant to be.

God created us both. The being of one of us does not negate the being of the other. We were created male and female so that we could learn from each other (49:13).

So let's learn to know one another.

All of My Stuff

As salaam alaikum,

Last night, I watched "For Colored Girls." As a result, I had a dream upon waking that my ex was trying to rape me. Yeah, not cute. Before then, I had a dream where I saw him, and I was just filled with hatred at the site of his silhouette.

Yeah, no more movies like that before bedtime.

But there was one of the poems that I really liked from the work that I just read for full effect. "Somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff." I liked it, because someone almost did. I especially identified with this part:


somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i waz standin
 there
lookin at myself
the whole time 
& it waznt a spirit took my stuff
waz a man whose 
ego walked round like Rodan’s shadow
waz a man faster
n my innocenc


waz a lover
i made too much 
room for
almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i didnt know i’d give it up so quik
& the one runnin wit it

don’t know he got it
& i’m shoutin this is mine
& he dont 
know he got it
my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure
 of the year
did you know somebody almost got away wit me
me in a plastic bag under their arm
me 
danglin on a string of personal carelessness...

This was my ex. I made too much space for him. And I almost let him walk away with so much of me, and my dignity, which I regained when I erased all traces of him from my life, save the backpack that was a gift to me and is actually quite useful and a Chimamanda Adichie book that he lent to me that he may never get back at this point.

I don't know why women do this. We put so much of ourselves into relationships, give so much of ourselves...and the men don't care. They don't know how much they've taken away. We made a space to fill with them, and then they leave us, and now we've got an empty space. And we chase them for a while, for the sake of sensation and sentiment, and they don't want to have any part. They don't even realize what havoc they've wrought.

They can't get too far with all of our stuff if they don't know they even have it. It should be easier to take it back.

Sometimes I wonder why we were made this way, women, to nurture so much, so many times at the expense of ourselves.

[uncensored]: Flashback: Vou Ficar Famoso e Casar Com Você

As salaam alaikum,

I just visited my xanga with the hopes of archiving it finally and putting the page to rest, maybe. However, I still get footprints on my page. The same person goes to this one entry, which I do like very much (maybe they're stealing the story idea, I don't know), so I decided to post it here to. The entry is pretty much self-explanatory. I'll give it with the date.

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Sunday, 13 December 2009

On my "Aguas de Março" (Elis Regina) station on Pandora, there's a live version of "Agua de Beber" by Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim.  At the end of the song, after applause from the audience, he speaks into the microphone, "Vou ficar famoso com isso (I'm going to get famous off of this)."

The audience laughs, of course, because Tom Jobim the world-renowned father of Bossa Nova, already famous, so the statement was very tongue in cheek.  Then he continues into what would be a segue into the next song of the set, probably "Luiza."  He says, "Luiza, eu vou ficar famoso e casar com você no Carnaval (Luiza, I'm going to get famous and marry you during Carnaval)."

Luiza is a very pretty song about the subject's love for this woman named Luiza.  My host mom in Brazil, Pilar, has a granddaughter named Luiza, I think after the Luiza of that song.

But I just thought that transition was so poetic.  It captures the love of an idealistic boy who finds himself having feelings for this girl, Luiza, probably a balance between lust and love, or at least what he believes love to be, and what he believes to be the natural progression of things.  And in that sentence is his ideal, his plan, and it shows how young he is.  His life would be made, he thinks, if he could get famous, thus impressing Luiza and defining his own personal success.  And the perfect place to marry would be Carnaval, a reflection of his perception of love, highly carnal, highly fanciful, a veritable fantasy of costume, color and dance.

He likes a girl, he believes he loves her, and his dreams would come true if he could become famous and then marry her during Carnaval.  With that one image, I see an entire story: a skinny boy of 18 or 19 with a violão (Brazilian guitar) composing a few songs in his room after work each day, sitting out on the ledge of his window.  He's written his best songs for Luiza, the neighbor, the little girl he's seen blossum into a woman as she walks to school, who for years shot him furtive glances but he's just now noticing, and he's not the only one.  But Luiza only has eyes for him, as he accosts her in her path with his violão, singing for her silly samba tunes that he's made up on the spot, that make her laugh, though she tries to hide her amusement, as she tries to hide her admiration of him.  She giggles to her friends as he passes.  He only sings her the silly songs, and keeps the more serious ones to himself.

A dreamer, he lives away from home to avoid the disapproval of his father, who thinks he should be more serious about his work and give the violão a rest, that music would not feed him well.  So he lives in what is barely a flat in Rio with some of his coworkers, former school mates of a similar age.  They tease him about his music, but he has a dream.  He's one day going to be discovered, his music is going to make it.  He's going to make records, he's going to play in concerts, on the radio, maybe even on television.  He's going to be famous, and if Luiza is impressed with his little sambas, she would be floored by his fame then.  Then she'll for sure say yes to marry him.  And it will be perfect.  He'll marry Luiza during Carnaval, and what an ecstasy that would be.



And at the end of this story, I don't imagine this boy marrying Luiza.  It takes him time, but his goal is to become famous, and he works hard and while he doesn't become famous in the way that he aspired to be, he finds himself in the music industry, he finds himself doing something that is fulfilling to him, and it all starts with a song that he writes for Luiza.  Years pass, he moves about, and his goal is to go back to Rio and find Luiza and propose to her marriage, Luiza existing only as an idea at this point and him losing track of time and not realizing that Luiza may no longer be in school, that Luiza herself may no longer be there.  And in the course of all of this, he moves forward in his career, finds satisfaction beyond fame.  In his path of songwriting he meets a singer who he befriends, but it doesn't go further because she perceives that there is someone else on his mind.

He eventually sees Luiza again.  She lived in the same neighborhood she grew up in, and is walking the same path she walked many days to school with her child, who she's named after the boy with the violão.  He is amazed that when he first sees her, though he recognized her, he forgot that he was supposed to have loved her.  He is happy to see her, and is suprised as she introduces him to her son, his namesake.

She'll tell him that he was the most beautiful person that she's ever known in life, and that she was so in love with him as he danced around her with his violão.  She liked their furtive glances, their flirtation, the brief interactions, and always imagined that they'd end up together.  He moved away, promised he'd return, but she reflected on how young she was.  Things had happened in the meantime, and now she found herself a single mother and had a son.  She thought it only appropriate to name him after the love of her life, so that maybe with his name he would grow up to do great things, to dream big, as did the boy with the violão.

The boy, now a man, will see her cry and feel like crying to, for saudades, out of being overwhelmed for the nature of life.  "Luiza, eu queria casar com você, sabia?" (Luiza, I wanted to marry you, did you know that?) he would tell her.  "Sim, queria casar comigo no Carnaval, como sempre disse." (Yes, you wanted to marry me during Carnaval, like you always said.)

He'll then say, should I marry you now?  Be a father to your son, my namesake?  And she'll say no, I'm not the same Luiza that you fell in love with.  And he'll ask if it matters, and she'll say, yes, it does.  She loves that she ran into him, she says, but she wants to keep the image of him that she once had.  Their story goes no further, she says.  She lives that moment and wants it to stay...[him] as the young boy with the violão dancing circles around her and her friends, singing silly sambas just to make her smile.  What we had was innocent, she says, and that's where our love best exists...in innocence.  He gazes at her and agrees.  Their love is best in innocence, the fascination with the carnal without the realization of it, the cusp of all of those feelings that they have both since realized.

He kisses his namesake on the forehead and the boy smiles.  He says goodbye to Luiza and somehow he knows that he'll never see her again.  He comes back and the singer, now his bandmate, sips on water and gives him a knowing look.  I saw Luiza, he'll tell her.  She nods.  I'll always love her, you know, in that moment in time.  And she sighs, admitting that this was the stuff of life, to love many in time and recall their past essence with affection and amazement of the false reality of time, the experience of life, the [elusive] nature of the Divine.

He perks up, as he thinks of the singers sentence and comes up with an idea for a song.  They sit in the studio and begin working on the song, writing the song togther, using her vocal talents as inspiration.

And there the story ends.

There's a reason why I wrote this, thought all of this out.  I'll share later.

To be continued...

Wasalaam.

RMD and Reflections

As salaam alaikum,

So, when I give excerpts from RMD, I've pretty much been only giving excerpts from the "Agent" chapters. I've explained it before, but the story has three narrations. The first one that appears is "Agent," in which the story opens up with this troublesome relationship between Mo and his lover, Desirée. The second chapter begins the second narration, which is "Desirée." There, we learn that Desirée's interest in Mo started when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore in the same class. We learn that Des is smart and can hold her own, but is somehow attracted to Mo...but before him, she had begun to notice the Muslim boys in her high school. So it goes to high school.

Then, "Agent," returns, and we learn that Mo is having some issues in life, some depression and stress that leave him vomiting in the bathroom of his lab building several days. During the spring break, not wanting to return to be alone in his apartment or talk with his usual friends, he wanders over the apartment of a friend, a Muslim sister who he hasn't spoken to in a while. This is Nisreen. Nisreen, who calls him by his common name, Mahmud, receives him tentatively, not feeling it was proper for him to be there, not only in his state but because he was a brother. Mo tells Nisreen that he's stressed out about not getting into medical school and worries about his fast-approaching future. He ends up throwing up and crashing on Nisreen's sofa in her apartment for a few hours.

The last narration to appear, "Muslimah," is a POV-style narration with Nisreen talking about Islam and framing her disquiet for Mo appearing at her place, not only because he was male but because she always thought he was better put together. She believes that there's more than just his future in medicine in question, but question of his future spouse and his life as a engaged and later married man that has him despairing.

And there is A Rose Much Desired. Heh.

How did a Muslim boy like Mo end up with a girl like Desirée, who, by all indications, was just a normal, geeky high schooler just before they met...who just happened to notice the workings of the Muslim boys at her high school as her best friend, a Muslim girl named Ameerah, decried their behavior and character on the regular? Nisreen wants to help Mo, although she feels uncomfortable and ill-equipped to help out a brother friend. What will come of Nisreen and Mo? Why is Mo so reluctant to tell about his girl problems, and why is he specifically wary of the word "marriage?" ...haha, well, of course, I know all the answers, I wrote it. Then there are questions that come up in the later half that are never answered...muahaha!

I'm having family read it first, but I think they got bored or confused and stopped. To be fair, I gave it to my cousins to read...then my best friend at med school and my intended (I refuse to call him the B word...any of them, actually, haha, even though his abbreviation on here is B). My mother has not read it yet, which is discouraging when you can't even get family to read it, haha, but I decided I'm not going to care too much. To me, it's great, it gets into a lot of themes that were relevant as I was a college-age Muslimah, and...it'll always be my baby.

So, to mix it up, I'll give you an excerpt this time from a "Desirée" chapter. This takes place Des's sophomore year of high school. She's eating lunch with her two best friends, Ameerah and Divya. This chapter is aptly called, "Muslim Boys:"

      “I’m telling you, Desirée, I’ve got slim pickings. Slim pickings,” Ameerah declared one day at lunch, pointing a fry in front of Desirée’s face. Desirée wondered if her eye crossed slightly as she focused on the ketchup on the tip of the fry. It was barely warm outside, but she, Ameerah and Divya had decided to eat on the patio outside of the administrative hallway. The bench was cold to Desirée but the springtime sun made up for it. She watched as Ameerah squeezed more ketchup onto the individual fry before actually eating it. Desirée was amused that Ameerah could eat whatever she wanted and seemingly never gained a pound. Let me eat fries every day at lunch and I’ll have to be rolled from class to class with a stick, she thought.

      Divya was shaking her head, ready to disagree. These days, Divya began letting down her hair, and it covered her shoulders and wavered as she shook her head. “Ameerah, at least they’re cute. I’m the one who has slim pickings.” She swung her legs to the other side of the bench, crossed her legs and smirked. “The cutest ones in our class haven’t gone through puberty yet.” Ameerah clapped and laughed raucously, which she usually did when things weren’t that funny. “I wish I could have my choice of the Muslim boys, but that’s only if I want to be disowned—”

      Ameerah waved her hand at Divya. “You and all this talk about how your parents would flip out if you ended up with a Muslim. What’s so bad about Muslims, anyway?” Desirée sipped on her Code Red and glanced from face to face as her friends spoke.

      “I’m Hindu!” Divya sputtered before choking on a mouth-full of the wrap she was eating.

      “And?” Ameerah was obviously not impressed. She had on her scowling, scrunched-nose disdain face. Desirée recognized it well. She was about to break it down. “You know Amjad who used to go here? His mother was Hindu and his father was Muslim, and they seemed to work out.”

      Divya gurgled between a gulp of water from her water bottle. “They seemed to. That’s key. You don’t know what went on with either side of his parents’ families. It probably was hell. Both sets of parents probably flipped the hell out.”

      “First, dude, eat your food before you like, die.” Ameerah squeezed her last ketchup packet on top of her fries. “Second, you say probably, but you can’t know that for certain. Maybe their parents were more understanding about them getting together. And look, Amjad was brilliant! He was a cool kid, like really, down to earth, balanced, better than the bunch of excuses for Muslims we got going on here.”  Ameerah pointed the fry this time at Divya, raising an eyebrow and nodding before flicking it into her mouth.

      Divya rolled her eyes. “Okay, so I guess I can’t say for sure. All I know is my parents outright told me that I could be ‘little friends’ with whoever I wanted now, but for marriage, no Muslims and no blacks.” Divya caught herself and shrugged, glancing at Desirée briefly before returning her attention to her wrap. “No offense, Desirée.”

     Desirée hated that. No offense. If a person really didn’t mean to be offensive, they wouldn’t have said it at all. And if they slipped and said it accidentally, the more appropriate thing would have been to apologize. “No offense” was defensive. Desirée opened her mouth to answer Divya but was interrupted by Ameerah. “Oh, but you don’t say ‘no offense’ to me, huh? So I’m supposed to sit here while you’re doing your Muslim bashing—”

       “I am not Muslim bashing, I just said—this isn’t even what we were really

talking about, Ameerah, I just said that at least the Muslim boys are cute. I 

don’t think you have slim pickings at all.”

The Desirée chapters definitely have a different vibe from the Agent chapters, which is usually what the excerpts are from. And then, there are the Muslimah chapters...let me see if I can find something good...okay, this is from the chapter, "The Mohammed Mahmud Ghazali Project:"

     It’s kind of hard sometimes to see someone you admire break down. It wasn’t that I followed Mahmud’s life story or anything, but even when he was more in the background of my life, he was like a pillar. I know that sounds weird, a little intense, maybe, but there always seem to be those people in your life that you can count on for constancy, stability. I knew that any time I was freaking out about something, all I had to do was cross his path on campus or wherever and he would always tell me that everything was going to be all right. Then, with that certainty, and I don’t know why it was certainty, just because he said it, I was able to do whatever it was. Nisreen bit her thumb nail as she spoke, And here he was, obviously perturbed about something, to the point that he’s wandering around town and alhamudulillah he at least came to my place and didn’t end up ambling to the other side of town.

      She nodded, glancing up to the ceiling at times. I mean, I know it was foolish of me to look to him for stability those times, or think of him as a rock at all. My rock should always be Allah ta’ala, and not any human being, and him breaking down at my place was proof of that, right? It was hard because I guess for a while I thought of him as stronger than that, above that, more independent than that, but at the same time it’s nice to identify. Someone else is human like you are and someone else is going through the same things as you are. I mean, not to say that I was glad to see him suffering, but—it just humanized him that much more for me, she said, pressing her hands to her chest. She scratched her lower left eyelid, we started reaching a level of understanding, I kind of understood what was going wrong with him, and I knew I could help.

      Nisreen chuckled abruptly, Yeah, I could help him. At the root of it all was a spiritual problem that he needed to realize, I thought. The man was not impoverished in the least. I mean, astaghfirullah ... not that I’m covetous or anything, but I wouldn’t mind some of what he had. In addition to his family he had tons of friends looking out for him and supporting him, and this woman, I can’t be sure but I think I know who she is, who must love him and want to be with him. I mean, I don’t know her or that she feels that way, but if she’s anything like—it’s like, the way we are, the way females are. Nisreen inhaled deeply and glanced and her feet before looking up again. In reality, I guess one could argue that all he was experiencing was normal at this juncture of his life. In the next few weeks, he was going to find out whether or not he had gotten into medical school, and he’s nervous about the not possibility. And after he gets into medical school insha’Allah and starts working to become a doctor and gets closer to the  man he’s going to be—he just kind of freaked out, I guess.

So yes, very different narration styles. There may be too much going on with the story for people to get, but I'm really really interested in what people have to say. Hahaha, people who know me too well (as well as some of my readers over the years) will able to find me in the narrative and pieces of my life story in the story line (haha, one of the narrations more than the other...I won't say which). But yeah, it was awesome writing this and good that I got it done before I enter this new chapter in my life, right before I lost inspiration to write the last couple of chapters as I did. I'll end this with a later excerpt from an Agent chapter. This is from my favorite chapter of the entire story, "Right Left Foot."

    Mo’s so light he feels like flying yet he knows better than to grin wildly at this point. This is no smiling matter, less a laughing matter, and he finds himself another night trekking home with clothing improper for the chill of the evening, his mind fixed on her.

He slipped a while back because they’ve had a freak ice storm and it’s hard to tell the black of the ice from the black of the asphalt and the sidewalks are even worse. He steadies himself and resumes his resolute pace.

Mo stares at his feet and about four feet before him to ensure that he doesn’t slip on yet another ice patch. He also notices that he swings his left foot out farther than his right when he walks. He forgets the ice and finds himself zeroing in on his left foot and contrasting its swing to that of his right.

      Nisreen’s laughing at him. “What is it?” he asks, turning back. It’s one of the warmer days, and she’s wearing a light-weight pink blouse with a neckline low enough that it’s showing her chest a bit whenever the wind blows her scarf. She’s standing near the front door to her apartment building, and he can hear her cackle despite the whirring of the wind that is whipping about them.

      “I’ve grown accustomed to your stride,” she remarks as he returns with her mail in one hand, her mailbox keys in the other.

      “How’s that funny?” he inquires, as she holds the screen door open for him. She follows closely behind him.

      “I don’t know.  It’s just so characteristically you,” she answers, giving him a halfway grin. “You kind of have a clumsy way of going about it, like you’re involuntarily throwing your left foot from beneath you.”

It's been great writing this, whatever comes of this project, whether it's actually published or if I just edit it, with the help of family and friends, bind it and put it on my shelf. This April or so will make this story idea 4 years old. It's the first story I've finished entirely since this campy piece that I wrote as a 13-year-old called "Daughter of a Supermodel," haha, and probably my most ambitious since the story I never finished when I was 15-years-old, "Sisters: Body and Soul." Writing is one of my loves of life...right up there with speaking Spanish and Portuguese, Brazil, the African Diaspora, and other random things, and I'm so happy that at almost 26 years old, 22 years after the first story I ever wrote, which was about P.J. Sparkles' magic powers, that I still can make writing part of my life. And though everyone who's read excerpts throughout the years aren't here to read this journal, thank you all for your encouragement over the years, patience, even though I was really only drawing from the first 100 pages of work.

Alhamudillah for the life of this world in which we have the opportunity to explore so much about our condition and our fellow humanity, to learn from each other and learn to know each other and express all that we've learned through such diverse media!

A Rose Much Desired is Almost Done!

As salaam alaikum,

After getting stuck on a chapter that turned out to be more important than I thought, to preserve a character that was more critical than I at first expected...I am a chapter and a half away from finishing the first full-length story that I've written as an adult. Yay!

B wants to read it. I've already given him hints, but he doesn't want to be spoiled. That's exciting, but I'm also a little nervous for him to read it, because if he only knew how much of it (especially the Desirée narration) was thinly veiled fiction, then he would instantly know tons of stuff about me.

At the same time, I'm not too concerned. I'm not worried about him knowing tons of stuff about me.

I think I'm going to go back to samba today after a two week hiatus after I twisted my ankle three weeks ago. It was a mild twist that just exacerbated an old injury, but samba for sure would have killed it. I think I'll wrap my ankle just in case, but I need to get moving again. I've also had a two week hiatus from the gym, and although I've been good at maintaining my weight so far, this week I've been a little bit of a lazy eater so it's time to get back to moving, now.

B at this time should be in DC, heading toward the rally. I would have gone, but none of my friends are going, and I figured it'd be too much if we rode the 10 hours roundtrip together, then I'd cramp his style as he was hanging out with one of his old friends. I mean, we're friends-ish, but I'm still a girl he's trying to impress, kind of, and it wouldn't be as comfortable, maybe. I don't know, I make excuses, but also I'm tired and I need to clean up my life. Tons of papers from fall 1 quarter are all around my room and I need to go ahead and put them into the binders I bought two months ago.

Yes, but RMD is almost done! Alhamdulillah! I'm going to proof it once more (because I'm OCD like that) before I give it to a couple of family members to read through. I'm nervous about this...I'm nervous that they'll say certain aspects aren't realistic, are over-the-top, or ask me why I would write about such material. We'll see. I, personally, like it a lot, but then again, I'm me.

And from there, I'm going to figure out how to get it published. A couple of my cousins are self-publishing, but I kind of want to find an agent and go from there.

But preview! I can only preview the first 120 pages or so, because around that time, the twist (!!) happens, so I don't want to give that away. But man, it's been a while since I read the first part...even though I wrote it, I forget exactly what happens. So I'm providing an excerpt. This is when Mo, very upset because he's not yet gotten into medical school, among other things, ventures over to Nisreen's apartment during her spring break, desiring to talk to somebody while all his friends are away during the break:

Nisreen steps forward, pulling the door behind her, as if ready to dismiss him. “I said, what can I do for you, Mahmud?” Mo’s scratching his head and running his fingers through his hair. He remembers he needs more gel; he didn’t have enough this morning. “You kind of caught me at a bad time. I was cleaning and didn’t expect anybody…”


“Well, you did call me a couple of days ago, telling me I should stop by, right?” He leans against the wall, supporting himself with his left arm. He watches as Nisreen gazes at this arm.

“A couple of days ago?” Nisreen chuckles curtly. “I called you a couple of weeks ago.”

Mo’s confused. Exactly how much time has passed? He did run his last gel in lab a while ago…she’s probably right. “Damn, you’re probably right. Sorry.”

Mo notices Nisreen flinch at the damn. She waves it off, though. “No need to apologize.” She’s opening the door wider and beckoning Mo inside. “What’s time, anyway, but an artificial construct to make us more comfortable in this elusive existence?” Mo doesn’t pay enough attention to Nisreen’s statement to become confused. Instead, he finds himself tracing her curves with his pupils again. Her long-sleeved shirt is clingy enough to outline the flare of her hips. He shakes himself out of it again. This is Nisreen, this is a Muslimah, a hijabi at that…if she caught him looking her up, she’d shuttle him straight out of the house and probably toss out an astaghfirullah for good measure. He’s desperate for company, so he guesses he needs to behave himself.

By the time he returns to face Nisreen, though, she’s eyeing him dubiously. Instead of apologizing, he tries to act like he wasn’t just undressing her with his eyes. He focuses on her face instead. Nisreen’s face, usually rounded because of the way she ties her scarf, is more triangular today. Her large forehead seems to shrink as she raises her eyebrows. She’s probably raising her eyebrows because he’s stood at the door to her apartment for nearly two minutes, and he’s still not coming inside.

“Mo, is there anything wrong?” Nisreen inquires, cocking her head to the side.

She called him Mo. He likes the way her O sounded, the way her lips rounded as she breathed it out. “Naw, I’m cool,” he manages to say. He swallows.

Nisreen shakes her head. “No, this isn’t right. You don’t look good at all. Come in, sit down and rest for a little bit.” Before he has the chance to protest, Nisreen grabs his left arm and drags him into her apartment and guides him to a sofa in the center of the room. Mo watches as she closes and locks the door to her apartment. She then runs into her kitchen, crashes around for a bit, and returns with two glasses of water. “I didn’t know if you prefer room temp or ice water. I’ll take whatever you don’t.”

Insha'Allah, I'll be done by this weekend!

I have tons of reading to do this weekend, and biostats homework. I plan to do the bulk of those tomorrow, returning home in time to get all spiffed up for the Djavan concert (!!) on Sunday. I'm taking B...literally, because I bought the tickets with my WorldMusic membership. Unlike two years ago, I know a few more of Djavan's songs by heart, so it will be even more of a fun concert-going experience. B is going to be surrounded by Brazilians, artsy Berklee college world music lovers, and me, the Brazil lover.

I'm also going to convince him that we should plan to have Africa Night sometime this month. He's busy a few weekends, then his birthday is coming up, then there's Thanksgiving...so I'm thinking late November we can pull something together. Either that, or next weekend. I'm not sure if my roommate's parents are coming up for her birthday or not, but then next weekend wouldn't be the greatest. Then I figure he may have stuff to catch up on, as he's in DC for the rally this weekend. I also figure he needs to be back in time to do tutoring tomorrow. I feel like he just might fall asleep during the concert. I'll have to poke him.

So, I'm happy! Yay! Not because of B, or Djavan coming this weekend, insha'Allah, or being done with RMD, insha'Allah, or having two engaging new (but reading heavy!) courses this quarter...my program planning and design course and my Sexuality and Public Health course. It's the sum of all of these!

I guess I should do more work today than I thought...I forgot I'm retwisting my hair tomorrow. That will take some time.

La mal amada / The Unloved Woman

As salaam alaikum,

I wrote the following (in italics) while I was on the bus to class this morning. But first, two quotes that I feel go a bit along with this:

"Consider the bright morning hours, and the night when it grows still and dark. Thy Sustainer has not forsaken thee, nor does He scorn thee. For indeed, the life to come will be better for thee than this earlier part [of thy life]! And, indeed, in time will thy Sustainer grant thee [what thy heart desires], and thou shalt be well-pleased." (93:1-5)

"Dark skinned women can sometimes turn rejection into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a woman assumes she won't be heard, she will shout when perhaps she could whisper. If she fears she won't be loved, love will become impossible. If she fears she is not beautiful, she can never see her own worth in her eyes or the vision of anyone else." - Marita Golden, Don't Play in the Sun

Consider these two things, and now..."La mal amada." Written from a theoretical dude's perspective...the Spanish isn't that great because I didn't have a dictionary.

La mal amada. Todos la conocen. Ella puede ser visto en cualquier lugar, público o privado, no importa. Ella viaja en el autobús por las mañanas, por el fondo del vehículo con audífonos, tentando de leer un período, quizás el período del día, pero se da cuenta del hecho de que ella sigue leyendo la misma página, momento tras momento, y que, en realidad, ella está mirando por fuera, afuera, por la ventana. Ella viaja por carro, solita, por supuesto, por las tardes, quizás para almorzar en su restuarante predilecta, otra vez solita. Ella está escuchando la misma estación de radio de siempre, de jazz, el tipo de que ella burlaba mucho como adolescente pero de que, en esta época, ella está encontrando algo de inspiración inexplicable. Y ella sigue cantando las palabras de una canción, una rendición que no tiene palabras y uno se da cuenta de que esta es una canción de su juventud, convertida en Musak, como se dicen. Puede verla por las noches, en los trenes, con su cuaderno de papeles, del trabajo, de la universidad, de ambos quizás, en un orden impecable que sólo puede ser de una mujer solterona que no tiene nada que hacer menos poner en orden todo en su vida, entre papeles y cepillas y fotos y toallas y melancolias y lágrimas particulares, personales...todas las cosas de vida, de su vida, de la vida de una mal amada. Pero sí, se sienta ella allí, en el carro del tren, otra vez y predictablemente solita, ojos fijos pero mente afuera, pensamientos por fuera del tren, del tunél en que viajamos, de la ciudad, del país, de la misma realidad. Ella sigue solita y se convience que ella está encima de esto, mejor que eso, mejor que todos. ¿Todos quienes? Todos los hombres que no la miren, todas las amigas que no puedan entenderla, toda la familia que ya resigasen al hecho de que quizás ella nunca se case...todos de todos. Ella es, por hecho, la mal amada, y ella no puede entender el por qué.

¿Soy yo bastante interesante? ella pregunta a si misma, sin duda, en su cabeza, una pregunta mudada por el ruido del tren y sus pensamientos, siempre competiendo. ¿Soy yo bastante interesante para conversación, para comedia, para romance? ¿Soy yo bastante? ella se pregunta. ¿Soy yo bastante por un hombre, por casamiento, por amor en general? ¿Soy yo? ella pregunta. ¿Soy yo humana misma, mujer misma, hermosa quizás? Quizás, ella resuelve. Ella es más cómoda con la noción que ella no merece lo que otras, tantas otras, merecen, simplemente por ser la mal amada, esta característica intrinsica, con que ella fue nacida, en la barriga de su madre, en sus genes, sólo puede ser, ella resuelve, no razona, sólo resuelve.

Dios no quiere que todos sus servientes se casen, ella se convience, a pesar de todo lo que su religión la enseñó, o a pesar de que ella no tiene su propia religión, de verdad, asumiendo así un fatalismo en que ella nunca creyó.

La mal amada encapsula muchas, muchas mujeres de varias edades, de multiples fondos, pero yo la veo. La veo triste, distraída, destruída, disilusionada, pero sí, amada. Amada por mí. ¿Quién soy yo? Ud. quizás pregunte. No importa. ¿Por qué? Porque ella no me ve. Ella no me mira, porque ella sigue existiendo por fuera, y entonces yo soy siempre afuera por ser mismo dentro de su realidad actual.

Y yo sigo esperando que ella regresa para ser amada por mí.

For my non-Spanish speakers:

The Unloved Woman. Everyone knows her. She can be seen anywhere, public or private, it doesn't matter. She travels by bus in the mornings, in the back of the vehicle with headphones on, trying to read a newspaper, maybe the day's paper, but one realizes the fact that she keeps reading the same page, moment after moment, and that, in reality, she is looking out, looking outside, out of the window. She travels by car, alone, of course, maybe to eat at her favorite restaurant, again, alone. She's listening to the same radio station as always, a jazz station, the type that she made fun of as a teenager but now, at her age, she's finding some sort of inexplicable inspiration in it. And she's just singing the words of a song, a version that doesn't have words and one realizes that this is a song from her youth, converted into Musak, as they call it. You can see her at night, in the subway, with her notebook of papers, from work, from college, from both, maybe, all in an impeccable order that must only be from a single woman that has nothing else to do but put everything in her life in order, between papers and brushes and pictures and towels and melancholy and specific, personal tears...all of the things of life, her life, of the life of the Unloved Woman. But yes, she sits there, in the car of the subway, once again predictably alone, her eyes fixed but her mind outside, her thoughts out of the train, of the tunnel that we're traveling in, out of the city, out of the country, out of reality itself. She's still alone and convinces herself that she's above this, better than this, better than everyone. Better than who all? All the men that don't look at her, all of the female friends that don't understand her, all of the family members that have already resigned themselves to the fact that she'll maybe never get married...all of them. She is, in fact, the Unloved Woman, and she can't understand why.

Am I interesting enough? she asked herself, without doubt in her head, a question muted by the noise of the train and her always competing thoughts.  Am I interesting enough for conversation, for comedy, for romance? Am I enough? she asked herself. Am I enough for a man, for marriage, for love in general? Am I? she asked. Am I actually human, actually woman, maybe attractive? Maybe, she resolves. She's more comfortable with the notion that she doesn't deserve what others, so many others, deserve, simply by being the Unloved Woman, this intrinsic characteristic in which she was born, in her mother's womb, in her genes, it must be, she resolves, not reasons, just resolves.

God doesn't want all of His servants to marry, she convinces herself, in spite of all that her religion taught her, or in spite of the fact that she doesn't have her own religion, actually, assuming this way a fatalism that she never believed in.

The  Unloved Woman encapsulates many, many women of various ages, of multiple backgrounds, but I see her. I see her sad, distracted, destroyed, disillusioned, but yes, loved. Loved by me. Who am I? you may ask. It doesn't matter. Why? Because she doesn't see me. She doesn't look at me, because she's still existing on the outside, and so I am always outside because I exist in her actual reality.
And I keep hoping that she comes back to be loved by me.